Thursday, July 17, 2008

It is good for one to be free, and we would cherish liberty even if she traveled alone, but she does not. Because Prosperity and Peace are both the companions of Liberty.War, the spirit of destruction, is the destroyer of Prosperity and Liberty. Should any wonder, then, that Americans are losing both their freedom and their well-being?

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Here is a new pocket book from Stefan Molyneux. You can read the PDF or listen to the audiobook version.A philosophical examination of our ambivalence towards spontaneous order, political compulsion and the liberty of the everyday...

This book is a must read (or listen) for anyone frustrated with the government.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

At the five-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government has hit another milestone — 4,000 U.S. soldiers dead.

And what have those soldiers died for? They died for the same thing that 58,000 soldiers died for in Vietnam — nothing.

Well, okay, not exactly nothing:

(1) They died to oust a dictator from office that U.S. officials didn’t like, only to be replaced by a radical Islamic regime that has aligned itself with Iran, which U.S. officials are still considering starting a war against.

(2) They died because U.S. officials need to save face through some sort of “victory” (whatever that means) despite the fact that the U.S. government has no legal or moral right to be in Iraq.

(3) They died in the destruction of an entire country, one whose government and citizenry had never attacked the United States and which, in fact, did not want a war with the United States.

(4) They died as part of an imperial adventure that has sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin, led by a dollar whose value, not surprisingly, continues to plunge in international markets.

At least we know the exact number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq. Early on, the Pentagon decided that Iraqis killed in the war simply would not be counted. That’s why there are only estimates of Iraqi dead, estimates that go as high as a million. The idea was that since the goal of helping the Iraqi people was considered a noble one, no one should really care how many of them died in the operation. In the minds of U.S. officials, no price was too high in the number of Iraqi deaths to achieve their goal.

In a fascinating use of language, U.S. military officials are still referring to the Iraqis they kill as “terrorists” rather than as “insurgents.” For example, according to a front-page article in today’s New York Times, “American forces on Sunday reported killing ‘12 terrorists’ who had attacked ground troops east of Baquba.”

But what U.S. officials never explain is why a person who is fighting to rid his country of an illegal foreign occupier (a war of aggression was punished as a war crime at Nuremberg) is a “terrorist.” I thought that a terrorist was a person who attacked civilian targets for political ends. Since U.S. occupation forces in Iraq are military personnel, not civilians, why are those Iraqis who are trying to oust the occupiers considered “terrorists?”

As the occupation of Iraq continues indefinitely, there will of course be more deaths, American and Iraqi. According to yesterday’s Washington Post, at least American widows or widowers receive half-a-million U.S. dollars for the loss of their spouses. While the U.S. government sometimes makes nominal payments to Iraqis, mostly Iraqis survivors are left with nothing but anger, resentment, and grief, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially since no one asked their consent to the U.S. invasion and occupation of their country.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The U.S. government’s policy toward Cuba is a textbook example of the malevolence and hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy.

In the wake of Fidel Castro’s resignation as Cuba’s president, U.S. officials, led by President Bush and members of Congress, appear all too ready to have the U.S. government “help” the Cuban people achieve democracy and freedom.

Now, doesn’t that notion suggest a love and concern for the welfare of the Cuban people?

Yet, look at the cruel, inhumane, and brutal economic embargo that the U.S. government has enforced against Cuba for decades. Year after year, U.S. officials have steadfastly enforced the embargo with the full knowledge of the horrific adverse effects it was having on the Cuban people. U.S. officials simply blamed the economic misery on Castro’s socialism, even while Castro blamed it on the embargo. The truth is that the Cuban people have been squeezed by both sides of the vise — Castro’s socialism and the U.S. embargo.

In calling for a change in direction in Cuba, U.S. officials suggest that Castro’s communist, totalitarian regime is a miserable place in which to live. That’s certainly true. But then what do U.S. officials do to people who escape Cuba? They attack them on the high seas with such weapons as water cannons, then they kidnap them, then they cooperate with Cuban communist coast guard officials, and then they repatriate the defenseless refugees back into the communist society that U.S. officials say is a miserable place in which to live.

Meanwhile, both Republicans and Democrats continue to tell us that sacrificing 60,000 American men in the Vietnam War was worth it to try to prevent the South Vietnamese from having to live under communist tyranny. Now, they say that it’s worth it to use U.S. force to repatriate people into communist tyranny in Cuba.

Oh, did I mention that there is no U.S. embargo against Vietnam today and that Americans are free to travel to Vietnam and trade with the Vietnamese communists?

U.S. officials, both Republican and Democrat, usually limit their criticisms to Castro’s political system rather than his socialist economic and educational systems.

Why is that?

The answer is simple: Castro’s economic and educational systems are no different, in principle, than those embraced by Republicans and Democrats. That makes them very uncomfortable because they’ve always felt that while Castro is a Cuban socialist, Republicans and Democrats have always been “American free-enterprisers.”

Consider the core element of Castro’s economic system: free, universal health care. Sound familiar? Isn’t that what Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama want? And the Republicans aren’t much better. Don’t they continue to be proud supporters of Medicare and Medicaid and don’t they have their own plans for more federal intervention into health care?

Consider the core element of Castro’s educational system: free public schooling for Cuban children. Can you show me even one U.S. official, either Republican or Democrat, who opposes free public schooling for American children?

How many U.S. officials, either Republican or Democrat, oppose any of those programs here in the United States?

Consider these features of Castro’s legal system: kangaroo military tribunals, condemnation of independent criminal-defense attorneys, denigration of an independent judiciary, torture, denial of due process, arbitrary arrests, no restrictions on search and seizure, and indefinite incarceration. Why, those principles are a dream-come-true for U.S. officials, especially the Republican ones. Why would it surprise anyone that they established their torture camp in Cuba rather than the United States?

Americans view the embargo against Cuba only as an attack on the well-being of the Cuban people, but it is much more than that. It is also an attack on the freedom of the American people. If an American travels to Cuba and spends money there without the permission of U.S. officials, he will be criminally and civilly prosecuted by his own government. Doesn’t freedom entail the fundamental right to travel wherever you want and spend your money in any way you want?

While Cubans understand that the economic and educational systems under which they live are socialism, Americans honestly believe that their economic and educational systems, albeit the same, are “free enterprise.”

Given Goethe’s pithy observation, “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believed they are free,” one cannot help but wonder whether the Cuban people, despite their misery and suffering, are actually freer than Americans.Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Saturday, February 02, 2008

The debate between Obama and Clinton over Iraq, along with the positions on Iraq taken by the Republican presidential candidates (except for Ron Paul) reflect what the presidential race is all about. It might not be politic to say so but the fact is that what Americans will be electing in November is not just a president but also a dictator

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

If a businessman wishes to associate with a foreigner, either personally or in a business relationship, why shouldn’t he be free to do so? Under what moral authority does the government interfere with a person’s freedom to associate with another person?